Area Rug Cleaning Blog
When shopping for new area rugs to decorate your home, there are a few important factors to consider. Size, color, shape, and more importantly durability. Size up the room and the area you want to cover. The most common area rug sizes are 8-by-10, 6-by-9 and 4-by-6 feet. Smaller rugs may be used for smaller spaces—a hearth, under a coffee table or a bedside. When it comes to color, it’s important to choose a rug to match the colors of your furnishings. While you decorate, the style of your room should determine your rugs shape. You do not always need to be limited to rectangular rugs. Sometimes an octagonal-shaped or circular rug can add elegance and flair. When it comes to area rugs, wool is usually a preferred choice over synthetics since it is more resistant to traffic patterns and wear. Wool has many amazing qualities such as deep, rich color tones, and most importantly, high durability. But not all rugs are manufactured the same way.

​Depending how your rug was manufactured will determine how long it may last. Certain manufacturing methods can cause complications during cleaning. So it is important to purchase your rug from a quality manufacturer. If you shop at any of today’s popular interior furnishing stores, you will notice a majority of jute backed rugs advertised as 100% wool. Jute is a fast growing biodegradable plant fiber, so there’s no question why manufacturers commonly use jute for a cheap alternative to cotton. Jute it is known for cellulose browning, retaining odors and dry rot. When jute becomes wet from cleaning, oils are released that cause browning and discoloration that will ruin your rug. (See image above of jute cellulose browning that has wicked to facing wool fibers)  Lately jute fiber has become cheap and plentiful, commonly wool rugs manufactured in India are woven with jute backing. India is the world’s #1 jute cultivator

Although size, color, shape and durability are important, using multiple area rugs can often add more decorative elegance. But why use two rugs? One rug is preferred as it coordinates the room together. However, sometimes two or more rugs complement each other and add style. The rugs having similar style in at least one of the three categories (design, color, size) will add to the interior design of your home making it welcoming. If you have a large room, having more than one rug can be used to separate the room adding contrast. Each design of both rugs should contrast each other to partition the room. However, it should be similar in color and in quality to maintain balance.

With regular use, your area rugs will get dirty. Foot traffic, food crumbs, dust, and pet stains can make this worse. Your rug loses its decorative style, smells bad, and it’s hard to keep when people complain about the odor. Especially if it’s a wool rug, wool can smell like a wet dog once it’s damp. We recommend having your rugs cleaned regularly to decrease odors and allergens! Dirt and dust trapped in between the fibers can often cause allergies if you wait too long to have it cleaned, regular cleaning will also help maintain your rug’s appearance.  We offer various methods to get your rug cleaned. Our hot water extraction method is great for cleaning light soiling, however, for rugs with strong odors or pet stains, our rug bath is recommended. ​

​Winter has arrived which means snow, slush, and ice. Often, slippery driveways mean they need salt to prevent slipping and cars sliding down causing accidents. The salt products people use can track in white residue and damage floors inside homes. At Mark’s Cleaning Service, we offer maid service to detail clean your home, removing all salt from entrances leaving your home spotless! Our maid service team follows the ‘Clean for Health’ program to detail clean your kitchens, bathrooms, utility rooms, bedrooms, showers, family rooms, living rooms, and basements! The benefit of ‘Clean for Health’ program is that your house gets cleaned with a strong focus on the details that are often overlooked. We have a stellar, 30 plus year reputation for residential cleaning due to our meticulous attention to detail in our ‘Clean for Health’ program.

​At Mark’s Cleaning Service, we offer high quality carpet cleaning to make sure you are ready for the holidays. We perform an exclusive deep carpet cleaning process designed to go WAY beyond what most cleaners do. Upon entering your home, our technicians apply shoe covers and move furniture in order to clean hard-to-reach areas. The cleaning process we use to clean your carpet is hot water extraction and the reason it is beneficial is because verified in research, for every 18-degree increase in water temperature above 118 degrees F you double the cleaning ability. Our truck mounted vacuum uses strong suction and hot water cleaning solution to draw the dirt, chemicals, bacteria, pollens, and other residue out of your carpet so it looks as good as new! The system we use is designed to steam clean and dry FAST, removing maximum soil. We give you the best of both worlds of truck mounted steam cleaning and turbo fast drying.

​Oriental rugs should be cleaned every 2 to 3 years, depending on the type of rug and foot traffic. Vacuuming can only clean the visible dirt, not the deep fibers of your rug. Getting your rug professionally cleaned periodically can extend the life of you rug and keep it healthy. Here at Mark’s Cleaning Service, we also remove stubborn dirt and dust. If not properly and periodically removed, dust can cause a lot of damage. Sometimes vacuuming cannot reach deep down into the fibers and remove dust; that is why we offer a full submersion spa treatment rug baths to effectively clean the deepest bacteria and dirt hiding in your rug! We first pre-vacuum your rug to remove loose soils and particulates. Then your rug is placed in our bath filled with fresh, clean water and neutral detergents. Once the rug is fully submerged under water, we use a machine to agitate with an ultra-soft brush to comb in throughout the rug fibers. Upon your request, we apply Teflon treatment to protect your rug after the cleaning process. 

​Fresh clean air is essential to any healthy home considering that the average person spends 87% of their time indoors. The majority of dust and debris comes from your air ducts and allergies can be irritated if your air ducts are filled with dust.  Your indoor air quality may be related to irritants found within your heating and cooling system, on top of all the dust in your air ducts, this can cause indoor air pollution in your own home! Indoor air pollution is a growing public health hazard with negative effects on millions of people around the globe.  Mark's Cleaning Service can give you peace of mind. We don't just clean air ducts, we also restore heating and air conditioning systems to superior cleanliness. 

Water damage is a scary situation, especially when you notice all of your contents are wet. Over 47% of homeowners and business owners claim to have suffered losses, so if you think it cannot happen, keep this in mind in case some of the following happen to you:
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• Your pipes are rusting, cracking and bulging.
• There is a freeze warning outside and your pipes get frozen from the weather.
• Sprinkler system malfunctions. This applies to commercial businesses.
• If there is a crack, or a hole in your gutter, severe or light rain, the water will leak down the side of the building.
• Appliance failure such as sun pump, dishwasher, sink, washing machine, etc.
• Plumbing supply system failure such as a leak and bursting pipe.
• Sewer drain backs up and overflows into your home.
• Toilet backups or overflows from faulty fill valves or clogged drain lines.
• Water heater failures; this can happen when it reaches its life expectancy and begins to rust and corrodes, it can leak or burst.

- HVACs (Heating, ventilating and air conditioning units) issues such as moisture buildup in AC unit.
-Weather-related issues and natural disasters.


If you have experienced even one of these scenarios, calling a local water damage restoration company may be your best option to get the most benefits of a dry-out process. Waiting too long to call can result in mold growth if the water sits for an extended period of time, regardless if it’s clean water. Give Mark’s Cleaning Service a call, we have a certified technician always on standby ready to answer any of your questions, minimize the water loss, and assess the damage. We also use advanced state-of-the-art equipment to extract the water using truck mounted machines and complete the professional dry out process with dehumidifiers and air movers. 

​Another common mistake people tend to make is grabbing a bottle of their favorite spot cleaner and drenching the stain. This will not help the situation and it will just cause the spot to grow in size, diluting the urine in spot cleaner. Diluted urine will not solve your odor problem, and the spot remover doesn't simply make the urine evaporate into thin air. It may smell better for a time but the ammonia is still present in a big way. Hot and humid summer days will activate the ammonia in your carpet causing the stain to re-hydrate itself and give off a urine smell.

It is important to understand that spot remover is made to remove the left over remnants of the stain, it's not designed to evaporate urine. So what do you do to remove the urine before using spot remover?